


Ratchet

by Applepye



Series: Transformers G1 Spark Bond [3]
Category: Transformers
Genre: Development of interfacing, How the Transformers breed, Multi, Sparklings explained
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 12:24:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18010856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applepye/pseuds/Applepye





	Ratchet

Ratchet came back online and looked around the wrecked ship. There was no way of telling how long he had been off line. Bodies of his fellow Autobots lay around him and he couldn’t tell if they were simply offline or dead. 

Slowly, Ratchet got to his feet. Fortunately, whatever damage he had sustained was not life threatening. His crewmates were going to have to wait. Someone had to get to the main computer to assess the damage. He was the first one up, so it had to be him. 

As he made his way to Teletraan, Ratchet heard some of the others moan as they started to awaken. “Status report,” Optimus Prime’s voice boomed over the others. “Where are the Decepticons?” It was good to hear that their leader still functioned. 

“Working on it,” Ratchet replied as tried to get the computer to respond. “Teletraan seems to be damaged. I’m a doctor not a mechanic. I don’t think I can get it functioning again.”

A small light off to his side caught his attention. Ratchet looked over to see a small creature with what looked like a firearm, pointing a light up at him. It had to have been one of the organic lifeforms that inhabited this planet. 

“Prime,” Ratchet said, keeping his eyes on the small intruder. “We have company.” He looked around and that was when he noticed several other small creatures with lighted firearms walking among the fallen Autobots. “Everyone watch your step.”

“It seems that our crash has not gone unnoticed,” Prime stated as he looked around the room. “We need to let them know that we mean them no harm and I pray that we did not harm any of them in our fight with the Decepticons and subsequent crash.”

“I’ll get a message put together,” Wheeljack said, taking a spot next to Ratchet at the console and shooting him a sideways glance. “As soon as I get the systems up and running again.”

“Would you like me to head outside, Prime?” Ratchet offered, taking the hint and stepping away from the computer system. Wheeljack was the computer expert and would have more success in getting Teletraan functioning again. “I can have a look around and try to help if we did cause any damage. I know enough about organic life forms to do simple repairs to them. These creatures can’t be that different from the ones we’ve encountered before.”

“Tread carefully,” Prime said, giving his permission. “And don’t make any sudden movements.”

All the while, the small creatures were saying things to each other in their own strange language. One of them spoke urgently as Ratchet made his way to the exit. No doubt the creature was communicating with others on the outside and was warning them of Ratchet’s movement. 

Cautiously, Ratchet exited the ship to get a measure of their surroundings. They were in a desolate place. If the rest of the planet was like the area they were in, it was a wonder that anything was able to survive. 

It was barren, hot, and the star the planet orbited gleamed down on them. Looking around, Ratchet saw no signs of civilization but there were more of the creatures gathered not too far away. Unlike the ones in the ship, the creatures on the outside were not in full protective gear. They were softer in appearance than most organic creatures they had encountered in the past. 

A quick scan told him that the machines with the creatures were not sentient.

“It doesn’t look like we caused any damage in the immediate vicinity,” Ratchet reported to Prime over the com. link. “This area is a wasteland. But there are several more of the planet’s inhabitants outside. They look to be heavily armed but not enough to inflict any major damage to us.”

“Come back inside,” Prime ordered. “We don’t want to provoke them.”

“Roger that.” Without any sudden movements, Ratchet stepped back inside the ship. 

By the time Ratchet made his way back through the ship, Wheeljack was playing the translated message for the creatures. Though he didn’t know the language, it was a message Ratchet knew well. It was the same message for every planet Megatron set his sights on. It explained that the Decepticon goal was to harvest the natural resources of the planet, destroying it in the process. The Autobots were there to keep that from happening. The message ended with an apology for bringing the war to their planet and a promise to do all that they can to keep them safe. 

Sometimes, Prime was able to keep that promise. 

There have been other times he was not. 

…….

The creatures call themselves ‘human’ and the area that the Autobots had crash in was called a desert. While this area was a wasteland, the majority of the planet was covered in water and boasted several masses of land with diverse climates. 

The Autobots learned that the Decepticon ship had crash landed, not too far away, in a vast body of water the humans called the Pacific Ocean. Both Autobots and Decepticons had suffered greatly; resources had been lost and their ships had been rendered inoperable. They were stranded.

Now it was a race to see who can replenish their supplies and repair their ships first. There were no casualties on the Autobot side. Wheeljack was able to fix Teletraan so they were able to communicate with Cybertron. Their space bridge, though offline, was not damaged beyond repair and their land bridge was fully operational. So, things could have been worse. 

The Decepticons were starting to move. True to form, they had adopted alt-forms that resembled Earth vehicles. They would move in, undetected and strike at locations to raid resources. 

As a result, several Autobots had been assigned to work directly with the military; Hound, Trailbreaker, and Hoist chief among them. They gave the humans methods of detecting the Decepticons. 

In return, the humans had assigned an engineer to the Autobots; a government employee who would work with the Autobots while learning all that he could about them. His name was William Witwicky but he insisted on them calling him Sparkplug. He said it had something to do with his army days. 

Accommodations had been made for the man and his teenage son, Spike, to stay aboard the Ark and communications had been set up with several high-ranking human representatives. Humans were in and out of the Ark all the time. The Autobots were going to have to watch where they stepped for a while but at least they were given access to the resources they needed. 

“So, who made you?” Spike said as he walked around Ratchet’s lab. It was a common question organics asked. Apparently, Cybertronian existence was a hard concept for them to comprehend. 

“No one made us,” Ratchet explained. “At least not in the way you’re thinking.” He was humoring the young human in his lab while Sparkplug was busy with Wheeljack. Sparkplug was interested in the technology that the Autobots used while Spike was more interested in the Autobots themselves. “I cannot simply build a body and have it come to life. We are living metal and energy, descendants from the original thirteen, created by Primus.”

“Descendants?” Spike considered Ratchet’s words for a moment. “So, you breed?”

“Yes,” Ratchet simply answered. “As most living creatures do.”

“How?” Spike said, his face expressing confusion. 

Taken aback by the question, Ratchet looked down at the human. Interfacing was not something that was openly discussed. “That is a personal question.”

“I’m not asking for you to demonstrate how it’s done,” Spike said in his defense with a slight chuckle. “A simple explanation would work. It’s hard for me to even fathom.”

Ratchet could not believe what he was hearing. “How would you feel if I asked you how your species procreated?”

“That information is readily available for you on the internet,” Spike pointed out. “There are even videos of people preforming the act if you were curious to see how it was done.”

“It is?” Ratchet turned to his computer. “Why?”

Spike shrugged. “The information is out there because knowing how it all works helps to prevent accidents and helps to ensure that all goes well. We also like to know everything there is to know about a species, including how they procreate. Every single known species on this planet has been or is currently being studied to the last detail. People are gonna wanna know these things about you too….” Blushing a little, he rubbed the back of his head. “The videos exist because some people… enjoy watching others… do it.”

“Fascinating,” Ratchet said as he pulled up medical journals on the human reproductive system. “You require a male and a female in order to produce an offspring. And it looks to be a fairly simple process, as long as both participants are healthy.”

“You don’t have females?” Spike casually asked. “Do you reproduce asexually?” Never before has Ratchet encountered a species that was so open with the way they copulate. 

Ratchet shook his head. “Yes… and no. All sparks are fundamentally the same. Though we have masculine and feminine forms, we are, for the most part, genderless and it takes two bots to create an offspring regardless of their physical form.”

Spike took a seat near Ratchet and looked up at him expectantly. “So, how’s it done? If gender isn’t necessary and any two bots can make a child, what’s the process?”

Hesitant, Ratchet contemplated the best way to explain the process. “It takes trust and a deep emotional bond. We are capable of interfacing strictly for pleasure, though it’s not easy, but when there is a bond, a spark touch is possible. Only through a spark touch can a sparkling be formed.”

“Okay.” Spike’s eyes narrowed and he looked off to the side as he processed the new information. “How do you interface and why is it not easy?”

“We have a cluster of connectors that surround our spark chamber,” Ratchet explained, feeling a little flustered as he pointed to his chest. “It is a way to… share energon. A good connection can result in a pleasurable sensation that radiates to the spark. A bad one can be unpleasant. Pleasant connections and a bond of love will bring the spark forward. The sparks touch and a sparkling is formed.

“The larger of the two bots will end up being the carrier, unless one of them is a Seeker. Seekers always end up as the carrier, though we don’t know why. The sparling will orbit the carrier’s spark for a while, gaining strength and then it will move down into the cassis. At that point, the carrier needs to consume raw materials. The sparkling forms a pod, using the raw material and energon. The pod then exits the carrier’s body through a port that we all have. After the spark has time to merge with the materials and energon, it emerges, the pod becoming its body. A steady diet of raw materials is needed for the hatchling to grow. The coding or Cyber Nano Algorithms in its spark will determine how it forms and its alt-mode.”

“That is so cool,” Spike said with a smile. “Fair warning, though. There are going to be researchers who are going to want detailed information about this process. Humans are curious and we like to know how things work to the smallest detail. They’re probably also gonna want to observe the sparkling development.”

Ratchet shook his head. “I don’t think any of us here are going to be producing sparklings any time soon. We’re in the middle of a war. It takes time for the pod to form and then the hatchling needs to be nurtured. That would take one of our soldiers out of the fight and a great deal of resources. And, no one wants to bring a sparkling into this. In fact, I don’t think a sparkling has been conceived since the war started, nearly three million years ago.”

“Oh,” Spike said, the smile dropping from his face. “If you’re not replacing the ones that are lost….”

“… It won’t be long before this war causes my people to go extinct,” Ratchet concluded. 

……

His conversation with Spike got Ratchet thinking. For the first time ever, he researched the reproduction of another species. Their way of interfacing or, as they called it, sex was considerably easier than the way Cybertronians did it. 

Being creatures made to adapt, Ratchet got to work researching the possibility of adapting to the human way of intimacy. If he could figure out a way of consolidating their connectors into one plug or spike and one valve, it would take the guess work out of interfacing. 

He planned on utilizing the already existing port for laying pods and the soft, flexible metal within to form a valve, lining it with nodes to trigger pleasurable sensations. The difficult task would be developing a spike that was soft and flexible for storage but could become hard and rigid for penetration, maintaining the ability to share energon, and having it all connect back to the spark. 

He had never paid this much attention to the connectors around the spark chamber before. It gave him a deeper understanding in the whole process involved in making a sparkling. He wondered when it was in Cybertronian history that, despite the fact that everyone knew about it, it became a taboo topic. He figured it was around the same time the Elitist started taking over but he couldn’t be sure; he hatched after the Elite had established themselves. 

It took him several months, but Ratchet was able to develop his new and easier way of interfacing. He even made it possible to simulate every aspect of human intimacy by creating a tongue by detaching part of the mechanism that assisted in swallowing. 

He tested modifications on himself and he was pleased with the results. For the first time, it was possible to self-pleasure resulting in an overload. Energon that was meant to be deposited in a partner, dripped from the tip of his spike, only to be reabsorbed by his shaft. 

The walls of his valve also seeped energon when the node was stimulated. It would act as a lubricant while providing the needed energon to be absorbed by a penetrating spike. He wasn’t quite sure how he should feel about having his first overload in such a way. Aside from that he was glad that everything worked and it felt better than he hoped it would. 

Now there was the issue of presenting it to the others. 

….

The only thing Ratchet had told Prime was that he wanted to talk to the crew about something medical. He now stood in front of a sea of shocked faces. The mere mention of interfacing was enough to stun them. 

“I’ve developed an easier way,” Ratchet continued as his crewmates awkwardly looked at each other. 

“Why?” Prime prompted. 

Ratchet looked up at him. Because it became an obsession was not a good answer so Ratchet came up with a better one. “Our way of doing it is difficult and for good reason. We live a long time so reproduction should be kept at a minimum or we run the risk of overpopulation. But the war has cut our numbers to just a few thousand. If we survive this war, we are going to need to repopulate and difficult methods of interfacing will only slow us down. The deep bond between two mechs will still be necessary for a spark touch, but the difficulties of finding a good connection will no longer exist.” 

He turned to look out over the gathered crew. “I wanted to present the option of the upgrade to you all.” He was aware that some of them casually interfaced with each other, he wasn’t going to mention it though. “I also plan on sending my findings to my colleagues back on Cybertron. The upgrade will not prevent you from interfacing the old way. If you are interested, you all know where to find me.”

…..

Ratchet worked to repair the tiny hatchling in his hand. The damage that had been done to it was old and, considering how small it was, it meant that it happened when it had hatched. It was going to need several rounds of repairs as it developed, repairs it would probably not receive, crippling it. 

Glancing up a Starscream, Ratchet could see the signs of his modifications. The Decepticons must have intercepted and decrypted his message to Cybertron. 

Now they are breeding.

Of course they are breeding, they have the Seekers and Seekers had been modified so that they were driven to interface. 

This would explain Starscream’s absence a few cycles ago. But, why would Megatron damage his own hatchlings? Then, Ratchet noticed the visor on the hatchling’s face. Megatron wasn’t the sire and that explained a lot. It was no secret that Megatron had laid claim to Starscream. Now Ratchet wondered if the sire was still alive. 

He didn’t want to send those poor innocent creatures back to Megatron but Blaster’s plea had won over Optimus. Ratchet hated to admit it but they were right. If they had taken the hatchlings from Starscream they would have been no better than the Elite that they were fighting so hard to distance themselves from. It would have only solidified the belief that the Autobots wanted nothing more than to go back to the classist way of life. 

Reluctantly, he handed the Sparklings back to Starscream.


End file.
